HANOI, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam posted a pre-tax profit of 18.36 trillion dong ($791.3 million) in 2018, up 62 percent from a year earlier, the government said on Friday.

The lender, better known as Vietcombank, is the largest listed bank in the Southeast Asian country and is targeting a 12 percent growth in pre-tax profit this year, the government said in a statement.

It said bad debts now account for 0.97 percent of Vietcombank’s total lending.

Vietcombank said on Wednesday it raised $265 million selling new shares to Singapore’s state investor GIC Pte Ltd and Japan’s Mizuho Bank Ltd. (Reporting by Khanh Vu; editing by Christian Schmollinger)